If you're happy and you know it....

Picture time frame: 07/26/09 to 08/03/09

Dylan loves his feet. When he's happy, he kicks them crazily. When he's sad or angry, he kicks them crazily. Put a toy close to his hand, he will bring his leg up and touch the toy with his foot. Put your hand in front of him, he will smile and kick it with his foot.

The first time I realized that Dylan was intentionally using his feet, I was giving him a diaper change. He was flat on his back on top of the changing table and I was standing next to the changing table. His foot kicked me.

"Oh, was I in your way?" I asked him aloud. I usually engage him in my imaginary conversations as I go about my business. I moved to the side so that he could kick freely, and I continued with the diaper change. He kicked me again.

"Hmmm," I said, and I moved to the side another step, not really thinking twice about my baby's apparent random flailings. He kicked me again.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, realizing that the bottom half of his body was stretched at more than a 90 degree angle to the changing table and his foot was near his head as he was kicking me in the belly. Dylan smiled at me.

We were actually a little concerned about his lack of use of his arms and hands. At one of his checkups, the pediatrician held something in front of his face and asked him, "Do you want to hold this?" She was testing to see if he had cleared the developmental milestone of reaching out with his hands to touch something. Dylan's face lit up in excitement as he lifted his leg up and kicked the item away with his foot. He smiled at her, waiting for her approval. His arms remained at his sides as if they were pinned to his body. I expressed our concern about Dylan's seeming inability to use his arms and hands. She reassured me that he would figure it out in good time.

Eventually, Dylan did find his hands. Or rather, his hands found each other. One hand would creep up onto his chest and reach over to the other side of his body. It would feel around until it found its target. Dylan would grab onto his other hand and lift it up. He would smile at his newly discovered treasure and hold it up to examine it. Then he would look around for someone with whom he could share the thrill of his discovery. He would play this game again and again. He would alternate which hand would be the treasure hunter.

We wouldn't miss this opportunity to take many pictures of Dylan looking so sweet, clasping his hands together next to his chest or chin. So here are a couple.

I would pretend that he was clapping and celebrate, saying, "Yay! You're clapping!" when he clasped his hands together. It's the same game you play when you train your dogs. You take a naturally occuring reaction and repeatedly associate it with a command. Then one day, you reverse the game, and you give the command and see what happens. I play this game, knowing that it will likely come back to haunt me, either by my teenage son one day hating me for it or my friends and family telling exaggerated humiliating stories about me for generations.

The game is really just for my entertainment so I can play it a million times a day, every day, until Dylan has a new discovery. It's a pretend game, so I can also pretend that the results are successful, when he does clasp his hands when I ask him to clap, even though he only does it when he feels like it and he doesn't always do it for everybody else when they ask him to clap.

Once again, I ask Dylan to clap. He stares at me with that stubborn, almost defiant look he sometimes gets. His arms remain at his sides. Both feet slowly rise up into the air. He turns the bottoms of his feet in toward each other, and matches them together. He holds them there. He smiles triumphantly. See? He has already found a new way to play my game. He clasps his feet.